Got to meet some fun helpers though. This little guy's sitting on a shutter. pic.twitter.com/qmMLG7vMzs
— Big Cat 5 Jeb Lund (@Mobute) September 8, 2017
Jeb Lund, at Esquire:
… The worst part of most hurricanes is the existential doom, knowing that your fate has been decided but waiting days to find out what it is, like a production of Waiting for Godot that lasts for a week and stands at least a slight chance of killing you…
Of course, you could skip all this and leave; you should leave. We can’t. My wife is trained in hazard mitigation and floodplain management and is one of the thousands of civil servants around the state who will help to put it back together. It’s a refreshing break from spending 364 days a year being called a government parasite…
Things are already quieter than normal. You can hear all the people who aren’t here. Costco was hushed. Nobody freaked out; nobody swore; nobody was rude. Several people looked antsy, like maybe they knew they were trapped, but most people feel that way now, to some degree. (Later, the people in the long propane line at Ace Hardware were basically a cooler full of Bud Light away from being a tailgate, but a few of them seemed like they’d figure out how to do that on Sunday regardless.)…
By the end of Saturday, it will be time to begin lying heavily to my son, who is almost three. To be fair, I’ve been lying to him since he was an infant because it’s funny, but he watches the Weather Channel and says, “It’s gonna rain,” in his toddler voice, and I tell him, “That’s ok, because mama and I are going to be here to keep you safe,” which isn’t true.
What I can’t tell him is that his parents can prepare to the very best of their ability—that they have good shutters and a new house built to high safety standards outside of the floodplain—but that if a hurricane decides to kill him, however low the odds, it will. Even a lowly Category 1 storm capriciously spins off little tornadoes that can descend on a random house and tear a family to bits. …
.
Poynter reprinted Miami Herald reporter Martin Merzer’s “‘Bring pencils’ and 49 other things hurricane pros know”:
… — The main thing is, don’t get overly stressed. You have to really work at it to get hurt by a hurricane these days.
— So, above all, remember the first commandment of hurricane coverage: Be careful during and after the storm. Don’t take unnecessary chances. Don’t get hurt. Rewrite gets real annoyed when your screams of pain and other ambient noise from the emergency room inhibit transcription of your dictated notes…
— Go early. Nag your supervisor until he or she sends you early. Early is good — you get a feel for the scene and you make friends before the other reporters ruin everything. Also, online needs fodder early, late, always…
— Plug in and charge everything you have — laptop, cellphone, sat phone, everything — and keep them charged.
— Carry cash, a lot of it. When electricity fails, credit cards become nothing much more than toothpicks.
— Bring stable rations and plenty of water. Raisins, crackers, cereal bars, etc. Lots and lots of them, and some sports drinks and lots of small bottles of water — a case or more. You’ll need enough for yourself, and they work as friend makers/quote generators if you pass them out to emergency workers and storm victims…
— Don’t stand in standing water. Let the other idiots get electrocuted — we don’t need them anyway. You, we can’t replace because we’re in a hiring freeze. Also, if you die, we need to fill out a lot of messy paperwork.
— Don’t stand outside or drive around during the storm. What’s the point? Most of you aren’t filming anything, and you could get killed and, you know, that hiring freeze again. Just look out the window and tell us what you see and hear and feel…
.
Florida native Jennine Capó Crucet, in the NYTimes — “Miami Always Thinks the Storm Will Turn”:
We are raised not to take them seriously.
It will turn at the last minute, there’s no reason to cancel school, this is just a way for supermarkets to make money: all things I’ve heard, and even said, growing up in Miami.
We wait to put on the shutters until the last minute because it is a pain to take them off later, after the storm makes that last-minute turn. We don’t take them off, not all of them, and that one room in the house is dark for weeks, maybe months. We watch as the storm devastates the countries our families are from and maybe still live in, only to have ourselves — with all our unused resources — spared.
On Wednesday, I read a tweet from a scientist with the National Hurricane Center saying that Hurricane Irma’s size and strength left him at “a complete and utter loss for words.”
I lose my Miami-born-and-bred resolve and send frantic texts to my sister saying she should get out. She assures me that they are prepared, she just needs to pick up steak and baby yogurt for her 10-month-old.
Last year, I missed her baby shower when the threat of a hurricane canceled my connecting flight into Miami. My family thought I should’ve gone for it, that the worst-case scenario was that I’d have to turn back in Atlanta. No, I said, the worst-case scenario is that I get stuck in Miami as a hurricane hits and I can’t get back to Nebraska, where I now live.
This scenario didn’t register for them as a possibility. They said, It’s going to turn just as it always does. In that case, they were right. They’re still angry I missed the baby shower, that I didn’t make the airline fly me toward the storm…
Psych1
Read CONDOMINIUM by MacDonald.
Sister Golden Bear
Let’s be careful out there. Stay safe, everyone.
Suzanne
My mom is pacing around the house, freaking out, worrying about her brother and his family. They’re in Sarasota, and didn’t evacuate.
Major Major Major Major
Reminds me of a futurama joke.
“This is the worst part… the calm before the battle.”
“Oh, so the actual battle’s not so bad?”
“Oh right. I forgot about the battle. *whimper*”
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
I just got the notes from my trip with Dirk to the ER this morning and they’re . . . heartbreaking, I guess is the right word.
That part about “. . . potentially even incapable of computing pain,” is . . . I don’t know that I can describe what that feels like to read.
I need to call them back and ask point blank whether it’s time to bring him in and have him euthanized. I understand why they are reluctant to give a straightforward yes/no answer to that, but I’m at sea here. He’s still eating, but . . . I spent about 45 minutes holding him after we got back, and he seemed to be asking me to do so, but he didn’t move at all between when I picked him up and when I set him down. If he’s just an automaton at this point and not generating happiness or pleasure from snuggling, it’s time. But I can’t tell just from the description.
Schlemazel
The ‘funny’ thing is most people who screw up and don’t evacuate with have made the ‘right’ decision. The hurricane will not kill them and most won’t even get that bad a scare. But there will be a good number of people who will die and even more that come as close to death as they ever will until their last day. Survivor bias means you will hear endlessly from people just knew hurricanes never land here or are not that bad. Dead people don’t talk & many of the traumatized won’t either.
I remember the story of some young guys who thought it would be a lark to stay for Andrew. About 20 minutes into the teeth of the storm they knew they had screwed up. The house started coming apart on them & they retreated to the bathroom until that was torn up. The surge swept a them away and a couple were never found. The couple that did survive were beaten up badly, lost & dazed when discovered.
feebog
@Psych1:
One of the first McDonald books I ever read. Maybe even the first. Set on the West Coast if I remember correctly.
Schlemazel
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Oh man, that is horrible. The only bright note is he is not in pain but what a shitty life for both of you. Please let us know if we can help you, even if it is just to stop over and sit with you
Major Major Major Major
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: so sorry to hear all that, but at least you know you’ve given him many years of a good life.
lamh36
It’s a work weekend for me, hope everyone in the path of Irma does what they can to stay safe.
I’ve be on a semi-hiatus from politics since last weekend when my sis was here with Layla..and I haven’t dived fully back to my almost 24/7 watching…I’ve been taking alot more self care , no politics time for myself, oh and getting excited for my trip to DC later this month.
trollhattan
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Damn, twenty pounds of bad news in a ten-pound sack–I’m so sorry. Catching up here, is Dirk a kitty cat?
Heidi Mom
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: So sorry that you’re facing this decision. We had to put our beloved cat Misty down about 5 weeks ago — congenital heart defect, only 5 years old, nothing more to be done. She was no longer eating or drinking and not really reacting to us, just waiting for her body to come to an end (or so it seemed). It sounds as though Dirk is getting to that point. Sending good thoughts.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Schlemazel: I may need to have someone drive me to and from the UofM vet hospital. I’ll let you know.
efgoldman
There’s a certain “boy (scientist) who cried wolf” aspect to this. The meteorologist says “hurricane could turn here and here, be x destructive, or it could go over there and we’re OK.” Viewers hear “it’s the worst ever, we’re all gonna’ die…” and then when it turns out, as it sometimes does, to be best case rather than worst, they ignore or downplay the warnings for the next storm/
Gloria in New England in the late 80s, for example. Power went out on our street; someone had a generator, once the rain stopped we had a block party.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@trollhattan: Yeah, he’s a cat. About 17-years old. He’s been declining for a while. I’d post a link to a pic of him in better days, but I don’t have an Instagram or such account.
lamh36
So…my daily movie talk:
I wasn’t sure if I was gonna see this film, even though it stars my husband Idris, and one of my fav actresses, Kate Winslet. After I heard it was based on a novel, I looked it up, and now I’m DEF gonna be seeing it…kinda can’t wait now!
The Mountain Between Us | Official Trailer | 20th Century FOX
Gin & Tonic
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I get the feeling you’ve made the decision and want some of us to validate it.
Whom will you be pleasing by prolonging this? Dirk?
NorthLeft12
I went on a business trip to Mobile, Alabama to visit a new customer just before a hurricane hit. My travelling companion and I cut our visit short a day and caught an earlier flight back to Ontario where hurricanes are not a thing [mostly].
At the chemical plant we visited we talked to the engineers and operators about the precautions that they had to take to make the plant safe. One of the operators had volunteered to stay in the control room [a safe blast proof building…almost a bunker] for a previous hurricane and he said he would never do it again. He said the sound of the wind and the debris hitting the building was very nerve wracking. He told us that after having gone through it, he could believe that some people would absolutely lose it when exposed to that for an extended period of time. I worked for that company from 1994 to 1999 but cannot recall which hurricane that was.
Suzanne
@efgoldman:
I was a kid living on Long Island for that one. I don’t remember being scared before or during, but we were without power for most of the week and I remember being astounded at the sight of gigantic oak trees scooped out of the ground, roots and all.
lamh36
@lamh36: I was laughing at the folks who watched Titanic and said… Kate betta NOT kill Idris like she killed Leo…LOL
trollhattan
@lamh36:
Actually looks intriguing, getting chills sitting here in the summer heat.
Promo idea: “Idris Elba is Bear Grylls!!!”
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Gin & Tonic: That’s what I want to talk to the vet and find out. Usually, my key to deciding when to bring it to an end is when they stop eating. If he still likes being held and petted and wants to keep going, that’s his call. But if he doesn’t have the cognitive function to process any of that, it’s different. So, I suspect that the answer is that it’s time, but I’d really like a better description of what the notes mean, since it includes a lot of stuff that she didn’t bring up when I was there.
I just called, and she’ll be back on duty around 8pm, so I’ll talk to her then. There’s nothing else I can do in the meantime, since I’m at work.
TaMara (HFG)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I am so sorry. We just lost a cat here (friend’s cat, but brother to one of mine) and it was the same thing. Couldn’t get a straight answer from the vet. But in the end, it was liver failure (almost sounds like FIP) and he was miserable.
If he’s not in pain, my humble opinion is, take the weekend and love on him and decide what’s best for you both.
trollhattan
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
Your tale brings up recent memories of ending our Dalmatian’s journey. Medically she wasn’t forcing it, the issue was loss of quality of life and the horrid self-questioning about when is when? Two months after I still don’t know.
It’s a gutting experience and I wish you the best.
Eljai
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I am so sorry. I hope your vet is able to give you good counsel. Pets bring so much joy and meaning to our lives, but this part is always painful. Sending you lots of love and light.
Schlemazel
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
please do
zhena gogolia
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
I’m so sorry. Whatever you do is the right decision. You’ve loved him and given him a good life.
CarolPW
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: It was thankfully very clear to me when my kitty Tweezer (she had just hit 21) was done with her run. Multiple health issues, and the only direct advice I ever got from a vet about letting any pet go (the morning following an emergency vet all night crisis) was that Tweezer didn’t seem to be ready to go yet. And about a year later one morning it was clear she wasn’t doing very well, and I picked her up and there was nothing left in her, no pleasure in living, and she was tired of the battle. Went straight to the vet and released her.
I hope when the time is right Dirk will be as clear to you as Tweezer was to me – it is a gift they can sometimes give and helps you both.
Sasha
@Psych1: I remember the TV movie.
Brachiator
@lamh36:
This movie looks like ridiculous disaster p0rn.
And fun. Can’t wait to see it.
FlipYrWhig
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Support and vicarious suffering from us over here, buddy. Dirk sounds like a fine fellow.
Maeve
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
I feel like I always waited to long with my dogs and regretted it later, but from your description, yes it’s time. Especially the checking out. If the vet can’t identify a path to take, then it seems to be time.
Really hard. Hope I do better the next time. But it’s hard.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Maeve: I was blessed when this happened last summer with Monster. She was 22, and feisty, active, and healthy until the last few hours of her life. I got home from work one morning and she had suddenly gone blind. It hadn’t changed when I got up that evening, so I took her in and they put her to sleep. No first guessing, let alone second guessing.
This is a lot harder. It makes me feel like it’s already been too long.
BubbaDave
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
I think it’s time. It’s the last favor you can do him, and the hardest, but it really doesn’t sound like the Dirk you love lives there any more.
Capri
As frustrating as it is, unless an animal is in unremitting pain it isn’t the veterinarian’s place to push euthanasia. Someone who has lived day to day with their pet has a much better appreciation for how how it is feeling.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Capri: The problem is that I kind of wanted to make the call this morning, but with the vet just telling me what the treatment options are, there’s never an opening in which I feel comfortable just up and saying that I think that it’s time to euthanize. It produces a strong bias in favor of taking your pet home even in the face of serious doubts. It’s worse in this case, since the written notes have implications that the verbal description didn’t.
Luthe
@Psych1: My favorite is Stormy Weather by Carl Hiassen. It was written about Andrew, but I doubt anything much will have changed in the interim.
OzarkHillbilly
From my cave rescue training: “Don’t be a victim.”
OzarkHillbilly
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: i will always 2nd guess the conversation I had with my mother. I don’t regret it. It had to happen. But I wonder.
tybee
@OzarkHillbilly:
amen
Older
I’m fascinated by the possible existence of people who have to go out in a storm to buy baby yogurt. For their baby who has no teeth? and therefore cannot eat regular yogurt? Which must be — chewed?
Maybe this is where Florida Man and his consort, Florida Woman come from.